


Hold fast and true

by Makioka



Category: Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 09:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makioka/pseuds/Makioka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything changes when Maria Bertram turns up on Fanny Price's doorstep in need of a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold fast and true

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naraht](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/gifts).



> A late pinch hit.

The gooseberries were ripe by this time and the Vicarage was filled with drifting scents as the cook sweated in the small kitchen to bottle them all. Fanny had turned up her sleeves to help with the bulk of it, in an establishment so much smaller than Mansfield Park every pair of hands was of use on occasions like this, and it was with reluctance that she heard the carriage approach outside. It wasn't a time for calling- a sticky hot summer morning that was instrumental in her hair sticking flat to her face and a delicate pink flush from picking the gooseberries the day before already settled on her countenance. They had been to Mansfield Park only two days before and while visits between the properties were usual and frequent, to have no warning was not. A coldness settled on her despite the warmth of the day as she washed her hands and settled her hair, removing the apron briskly as she went to receive her visitor.

  
Edmund in his study was lost to the world and she could expect no emergence from there until dinner was served. It was not just the heat of the day that caused the sharp unloyal thought that she wished he spent rather less time with his sermons and more time with his household, and she put it aside with the shame she always felt at such thoughts. They seemed to crowd more frequently on her these days but that she attributed to the weather- not suited either to her temperament which had never flourished in such heat and to Edmund's slow withdrawal to his books and his papers. He had not the new fortitude of his brother for a life that though he was suited to it by taste and inclination still frustrated him immeasurably with the slowness of his parishioners and their resistance to any change- to the introduction of any music than the glee could provide, the replacement of hymnals with newer fresher editions and the slow village disapproval of his sermons. Dr Grant in his time had preached hearty short sermons well suited to the taste of a community not overly particular with its religion and with healthy appetites. Edmund had retreated first to the safety of old sermons and then embarked on his own which often lost their way and had caused more than one goodwife's midday meal to be in need of rescue.

  
With these thoughts uppermost she received her visitor in the drawing room but could not prevent a sudden change of colour at the sight of Maria Bertram as she would always be to Fanny despite her marriage and subsequent divorce from Mr Rushworth. The lady did not look well and signs of agitation were clear in her countenance as she wrung her handkerchief between her hands as though it were a comfort she clung to. "Maria," Fanny gasped, and stopped short. Her natural kindness propelled her a little closer to the woman she had been informed would never leave the remote dwelling place from which she had been exiled after her indiscretion, and she looked above her instinctively. Now would not be the time for Edmund to decide to be sociable. "What are you doing here?" she asked too fraught to be polite.

  
Maria sank to the chair as though too weak to continue standing any longer though Fanny had not invited her to sit. Fanny remained standing, hovering in indecision. "I had nowhere else to go," Maria replied dully, and that was indeed the truth- Fanny could not imagine even the Maria of old- wilful and lawless as she had been daring to trespass on Sir Thomas Bertram's kindness once outcast from it. The idea of this woman pleading at the gates of Mansfield Park was ludicrous. "You had always been kind Fanny," she said and those words coming from Maria were more shocking than anything else that could be said, "I did not think you would turn me away from your door and I had such need of someone."

  
Without her knowing it, Fanny had taken her seat beside her and was wrestling furiously with that very question. She could not receive Maria- the thought was unthinkable after the sin Maria had committed but to bid her to leave was impossible also. One thing that was certain though was that Edmund could not know of her presence- as a clergyman he would be obliged to refuse her audience, and his bitter feelings still ran deep, tapped a vein that Fanny hoped never more to be re-opened, now that the Crawfords were no more than shades of memory she had no wish to resurrect them once more in any form. "What is the matter Maria?" she asked and the timidity with which she would once have ventured that question was no more, a year of being married to Edmund and being mistress of her own house had strengthened her immeasurably.

  
It was long seconds before Maria ventured a reply and when she did it was as colourless and quiet as the news was shocking. "Mrs Norris is dead," she said with a whisper. "Fanny, I think I killed her," and the mantle of horror settled over Fanny for long moments. Beside her was not merely an adulteress but a murderess, and it was with every shred of strength of mind that she could bring to bear that she refrained from screaming, though she shrunk away from Maria. Maria continued, heedless and careless of the reaction that she had caused, absorbed only in her tale. "Oh she argued so much Fanny, you can have no idea of the quantity of the misery that I endured at her hands. She often threatened to leave me to my own ungrateful devices. As it was, to have no butter at table since she considered it wasteful between only us, to thrice turn dresses, to have the allowance my father condescended to grant me held in her hands only, made it so unbearable that in truth it was all that I longed for, to have her just leave one day and never return." She hid her face for a second at remembered wrongs.

  
Fanny waited patiently for the resumption of the tale and then gently prompted her. "What happened?" she asked though she would have given anything not to be answered.

  
"She grew vicious as well as discontent, and the love she thought strong enough to endure with me in isolation, proved no defense to me against her sharp tongue. She shamed me for my actions more thoroughly than even Edmund or my father were able to do, and when enraged her words cut me like knives until I could no longer bear it, could not work on sewing nor escape to a book or even walk in the garden, could do nothing but rage within myself hopelessly until we were like two cats fighting in a bag." Maria paused and drew breath. "Then one day when she had been so quarrelsome and loud, overcome with misery I raised my hand to her, to quiet her infernal nagging and scolding at me. I swear Fanny I did not even intend to strike her, but she turned pale and opened her mouth even wider, and then she clutched at her chest and _fell_."  The remembered awfulness swept over her. "I could not imagine what on earth I should do. She struck her head as she crumpled and all I could think was that I had killed her, and when I touched her she was so terribly still that I knew instantly that she was indeed dead. I caught up a cloak and what money there was in the house, knowing that there was a stagecoach that passed through town once a week and I was just in time." She finished now and turned to Fanny with pleading in her eyes.

  
There was stillness in the drawing room, the air still hot and yet Fanny sat still and cold within it. "Maria," she said, and then stopped helplessly, words deserting her. It seemed impossible that this should happen in her quiet life, that above her Edmund should still work in peaceful repose while his disgraced sister told her a tale that could hardly be true. "Maria," she said more firmly, "I do not think that you are to blame." It was not only soothing words that she spoke but the truth as far as she could see. Maria could not possibly be held accountable for Mrs Norris's collapse.

  
"There was so much blood," Maria said dully. "I do not know how physicians pursue their trade but will not they suspect that it was something other than chance that caused her collapse? And too, like a fool I fled in terror which heaps suspicion upon my head. I am lost, Fanny, I am sure of it. I do not know what I shall do in gaol." It was not merely an appeal for sympathy, but an earnest conviction, and in the end it was that which convinced Fanny.

  
"We must return," Fanny said with more resolution than she felt, "we can do nothing here that is for sure. Leave it in my hands and conceal yourself in the garden house for now. No-one shall venture there I am sure of it. Then in your best hand write me a letter that expresses your urgent wish for my attendance due to illness in the house. Couch it in terms that no-one could doubt," as she spoke she retrieved writing materials and paper, reminded irresistibly of her first nights in Mansfield Park. Maria followed her instructions numbly, and Fanny ran up the stairs to Edmund, doubt beginning to flood her veins. Of all sins to lie to her husband or even to conceal the truth seemed beyond her, and she battled with the possibility before she entered the room determined to keep to the truth in all but one detail.

  
"Fanny," Edmund said, with evident pleasure and stood to absentmindly kiss her brow. "How go your gooseberries?"

  
"Well enough," she said, "but I need to speak with you on a matter of urgency. I have a letter from Maria that begs me to attend her and Mrs Norris on grounds of illness. She is so imploring Edmund I do not see how we can ignore her," she saw him already harden and shake his head, and pressed her point with more desperation than she had believed herself in possession of. "I would not ask if I did not think it were truly necessary Edmund," she said.

  
He paced back and forth for a few moments. "I have never known you to do or think wrong Fanny," he said- not in praise but in honest appraisal, "and have often imagined that your judgement is more solid than mine in many matters'- between them hung the spectre of the Crawfords for one long second- "and if it is indeed your wish then of course I shall accompany you. We may, I think beg a loan of the Mansfield coach for this journey," and he continued in that vein, for having fixed himself upon a course of action he was concerned mostly with the details.

  
"No," Fanny said in momentary panic, "I honour you for your dear thought Edmund but I must leave by myself, take only a groom for protection. I would not have you break your word even for me. Maria can no longer be received by you or your father as a Bertram, but I am not bound to such a promise." It took a great deal of time to have him consent but finally he agreed, and the coach from Mansfield was loaned for the journey at his request though the reason was not bandied about.

  
If anyone had been looking (luckily they were not) they would have seen a shawl-swathed figure be helped briskly into a carriage near the Vicarage, and the whole ensemble clatter into the night. On the way, the full depth and foolishness of her actions began to swim before Fanny's eyes and she could not imagine what had possessed her, apart from the certainty of Maria that she should be prosecuted and her own private conviction that Edmund would have been no more bendable than the law itself on this matter. She could barely breathe from the knowledge of her own sins now shown before her vivid and clear. She had not thought, or had rather put too much faith in her judgement and she was within a hairbreadth of turning back to Mansfield and transferring this burden to stronger shoulders. If it had not been for Maria's white, set face beside her and the agonies she was going through that seemed soothed only by Fanny's presence she should surely have done so. As it was her sense of justice prevailed, and when they arrived at Maria's secluded house in the bleak early morning she had steeled herself to undertaking this course of action.

  
Inside all was silent. Mrs Norris lay where she had fallen, the dried blood around her forming a collar of its own. "How long has she been here?" Fanny said, turning away from the sight and leaving the room.

  
"Since yesterday morning," Maria answered in hushed silence. The body had seemed a pathetic thing to Fanny; the woman who had frightened and abused her so much in her childhood, who had sought always to instill in her a sense of her inferiority, was now so small and stiffened, the eyes wide and angry still. Death had not brought peace to Mrs Norris's countenance which remained as pinched and sour as it had been in life. Maria was beginning to shake, sudden tremours wracking her as though the full horror had been delayed and Fanny was recalled to the duty which had brought her here in the first place.

  
"Maria," she said gently, "we must dispatch the groom for the physician. Do you have a maid?"

  
"No," Maria said dully. "That was one of the first comforts to be sacrificed, Mrs Norris reckoned herself very well capable of managing the house alone with only the help of a village woman three times a week. There is no-one here but ourselves and we never had visitors."

  
They sat almost in silence until the physician arrived and Maria explained in stumbling sentences how Mrs Norris had clutched at her chest and collapsed in such a fashion, taking obvious strength in Fanny's presence. The physician a small, sharp featured man who clung to the fashions of his youth listened to them without moving a muscle of his face or breathing a word. "The body is not freshly dead," he said abruptly as though normal standards of politeness were suspended in the presence of death. "I would assume that a little time at least had passed," and he left the sentence hanging in the air.

  
Seeing that Maria was too scattered to reply, Fanny summoned her courage and spoke. "It was a shock unlike any to be encountered, to have a loved one so suddenly gone," she said quietly. "I cannot blame Maria for seeking comfort before attending to the formalities."

  
"Examination of the body is not merely a formality," the physician said severely but did not seem inclined to press the point. "From my preliminary examination I am certain her heart was weak. It could have happened at any moment. The cut is merely superficial though the blood flowed freely," and Fanny felt rather than saw Maria's reaction. The physician spoke more on the details of what would happen next but Fanny doubted Maria heard anymore of it than she did herself. The shock that had been so long delayed while she had a purpose was beginning to make itself known, and the physician seemed to know that for his sharp voice had softened itself a little as he recommended that they take themselves to their beds for now.

  
Fanny would have wished for nothing more than to sleep but she could not delay. The carriage would be needed, she must rest here no longer than it took to rest the horses. She did not wish to leave Maria, but she had been there for the worst of it and in conscience there was nothing more that could be done here. After the physician had left Maria had thanked her more than Fanny knew what to do with. There had never been friendship between them, not before Maria's disgrace nor after, but unwillingly Fanny found pity had lodged a tendril in her heart and she did not want to leave Maria alone, without a friend to unburden herself to. And yet still she could not take Maria home to Edmund, though she resolved to once again to broach the matter when she brought the news of Mrs Norris back to Mansfield.

  
It was with more tenderness than she had ever thought to apply to the other woman that she bid her farewell and set off on the long journey home, and it was with joy and relief that she greeted Edmund. The separation short as it had been had renewed her love, the small irritations of their life forgotten and swept underfoot in happiness at being in his arms again, and with a heightened sense that although she might have done wrong that it had not materially harmed her marriage. After the news had been broken of Mrs Norris's death, she had been surprised that he took so little persuading to undertake to lift the burden of the funeral arrangements from Maria's shoulders but pleased.

 

That night as she lay open eyed beside Edmund she counted her sins over in her head as she had often been used to do, and remembered the look in Maria's eyes when she realised that she had not misjudged Fanny, that she might rely on her for help and with that thought she slept more deeply than she had in some time, in the sure consciousness of a decision made herself.


End file.
